AUBURN, Alabama -- The hurry-up, no-huddle offense has been proven to work at the collegiate level time and time again, from Gus Malzahn's time at Tulsa, Auburn and Arkansas State to Chad Morris at Clemson and Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss, among others.

But there was a time when even Malzahn had his doubts, roughly eight years ago, as he prepared to make the transition from dominating Arkansas high school football to the college ranks.

"Any time you do something in high school, you have an idea, and you think that type of offense could be successful," Malzahn said during Wednesday's SEC teleconference appearance. "Until you actually do it, I think there's a lot of question marks. Of course, I was confident and all that, but I didn't know 100 percent for sure. Now, I didn't tell anybody that."

Malzahn finally got his answer at Tulsa, his second job at the collegiate level.

"Of course I got a chance at Arkansas to do a little bit of that, but really at Tulsa, Todd Graham really gave me the chance to run an offense by myself, had some very good players and found the system can really work at this level," Malzahn said.

At Tulsa, Malzahn's offense exploded, ranking first nationally in both of his seasons and setting records for passing yards.

That chance to prove his offense's merit led to Auburn's offensive turnaround in 2009 and the national championship season with Cam Newton at quarterback in 2010.

"Once you get in the college game, you figure out it's all about X's and O's, they can only play 11, and they can only do so many things if they're sound defensively."

Graham was convinced.

After Malzahn moved on to Auburn, Graham kept the scheme, hiring former Malzahn assistant Mike Norvell to run the offense both at Pittsburgh and Arizona State, his current stop.

Malzahn hasn't forgotten the opportunity Graham gave him.

"Todd Graham's an old high school football coach, we think a lot alike, and that's kind of his philosophy," Malzahn said. "He's really the one that gave me the opportunity, and I'll be forever thankful for that."